Europa

Excerpted from W. T. Stead, The United States of Europe, Part I, ch.5, (1899)

I had the good fortune to be in Berlin
two years ago. A great capital is always a great inspiration. And Berlin,
with its heroic associations of past wars, is more inspiring than most
of the younger cities of the world. But that which impressed me most on
this visit was the new building of the Reichstag, which had not been completed
the last time I was in Germany. It was not the building itself -although
that is imposing, if rather squat, with noble equestrian statues standing
boldly against the sky- but the political fact which it represented.

Here
under one roof, around the same tribune, gather in peaceful debate the
representatives of as many States as those which now make up the anarchy
of Europe. It is the fashion nowadays to speak of language as if it were
a tie closer than all others. But the belief in the unity of the Fatherland
because of its common speech is hardly a century old, and long after Arndt
had embodied the idea in verse, German fought German with the utmost indifference
to the German tongue. The intense individuality of the German, his tendency
to construct a special theory of the universe entirely for his own use
out of his own consciousness, made the German races the most intractable
material for empire-building on the Continent. They fought each other
for the love of God; they fought for the pride of place; they were capable
of fighting for a theory of irregular verbs. They were divided, and sub-divided,
and re-divided again into kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and all manner
of smaller States. Every ruler was as touchy as a Spanish hidalgo about
his precedence, and no miser ever clutched his gold with more savage determination
to keep and to hold than every German princelet maintained to the uttermost
the princely prerogative of making war and peace. Not even the constant
pressure of foreign peril sufficed to overcome the centrifugal tendency
of the German genius. Again and again the wiser heads amongst them had
devised more or less elaborate plans for securing German unity. After
the fall of Napoleon, the best that could be done was the Bund, which
was almost as provoking in its deliberative inaction as the European Concert
is to-day. But the Bund perished at the sword's point, to be succeeded
by the North and South German Confederations, which in turn disappeared
when the victories over France rendered it possible for the Prussian King
to be proclaimed German Emperor in the Palace at Versailles. Since then
unified Germany has been at peace. Germany has become a unit, and the
Reichstag, although sorely distracted by the fissiparous tendency of the
German parliamentary man, has been the parliament of the United Empire.

How long will it be, I wondered, as I wandered
through the building of the Reichstag, before unified Europe has its Parliament
House, and the Federation of Europe finds for itself a headquarters and
a local habitation for a permanent representative assembly?

What Germany has done, Europe may do.

The Union of Germany has not resulted in
the disarmament of Germans, neither would the Constitution of the United
States of Europe lead to the disarmament of the Continent. But no German
now buckles on the sword with any dread lest he may have to unsheathe
it against a brother German. The area within which peace reigns and the
law court is supreme is now widened so as to include all German lands
between German and France. That is an enormous gain. If we could achieve
anything like it for Europe we might be well content.

The progress of mankind to a higher civilization
has been marked at every stage by the continuous widening of the area
within which no sword shall be drawn and no shot fired save by command
of the central authority. In pure savagery every individual is a sovereign
unit. The mateless tiger in the jungle is the most perfect type of the
first stage of human individualism. Whom he will or can he slays, and
whom he will or must he spares alive. His appetite or his caprice is his
only law. He has power of life and death, and the sole right of levying
war or making peace without reference to any other sovereignty than his
own. From that starting-point man has gradually progressed by irregular
stages across the centuries, until the right to kill, instead of being
the universal prerogative of every man, is practically vested in about
twenty hands -so far as white-skinned races are concerned. The first step
was the substitution of the family for the individual as the unit of sovereignty.
War might prevail ad libitum outside, but there must be peace at home.
After the family came the tribe. After the tribe, the federation of tribes
for purposes of self defence or of effective aggression. Then came the
cities, with the civic unit. From time to time a despot or conqueror,
driven by sheer ambition, established an empire, which, however imperfect
it might be, maintained peace within its boundaries. Then nations were
formed, each with their own organism and each allowing at first a very
wide latitude for private and local war to their component parts. In our
own history, not even our insular position prevented our forefathers,
long after they had achieved some kind of nominal unity, preserving with
jealous eye the right of private and provincial war. By slow degrees,
however, the right to kill has been confined to even fewer and fewer hands.
The mills of God have ground as usual very slowly, but those who took
the sword perished by the sword, and the pertinacious asserters of the
ancient inalienable right of private war were converted from the error
of their ways by the effective process of extermination at the hands of
a stronger power, determined that no one should wield the power of the
sword but itself. In Germany to-day, in place of a hundred potentates,
each enjoying the right to kill, William II is the sole War Lord.

And as it is in Germany so it is elsewhere.
The right to suspend the Decalogue so far as the command "Thou shalt
not kill" is concerned is now confined in Europe to William II, Nicholas
II, Francis Joseph, Humbert, Victoria, and President Faure. These are
the lords of the first degree, whose right to kill is practically absolute.
After them come the lords of the second degree, who are allowed a certain
latitude of killing provided they can secure the neutrality of one or
more of the War Lords of the first degree. There is a nominal right to
kill enjoyed by all the kings of all States. But as a matter of fact it
cannot be exercised except in alliance with one or other of the greater
Powers. Greece thought that it was possible to exercise this nominal prerogative
of independent sovereignty. Her experience is not such as to encourage
other small States to follow her example.

But in reality the persons who have the
unrestricted right to kill in Europe are even fewer than the six absolute
lords. Europe is now practically divided into two camps. There is the
Russo-French Alliance, entered into for the purpose of restraining France
from precipitating war, which practically gives Nicholas II a veto upon
the right of levying war enjoyed by the French Republic. On the other
hand, there is the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which
practically renders it impossible for Austria or Italy to go to war without
the permission of William II. Between these two Alliances there is the
British Empire. In Europe, therefore, the right of levying war is vested
almost solely in the Queen, her grandson, and her granddaughter's husband.
Nicholas II, William II, and Victoria -these three are the Triumvirate
of Europe. And as the late Tsar said to me at Gatschina, "If these
three -Russia, Germany, and England- hold together, there will be no war."
So far, therefore, we have come in our pilgrimage to the United States
of Europe, that the power of the sword, which last century was a practical
reality in the hands of a hundred potentates, is now practically limited
to three persons, without whose permission no gun may be fired in wrath
in the whole Continent.

No reproach is more frequently brought against
me than that of inconsistency. It is the most familiar of the jibes which
are flung at me by both friends and foes alike when they differ from me,
that they never know what I am going to be at next, and I am everything
by turns and nothing long. These reproaches and sarcasms I have borne
with the equanimity of one whose withers are unwrung, for I happen to
be in the fortunate position of a man whose opinions have been on record
from day to day and from month to month for the last twenty-five years.
To all such accusations there is only one answer: Litera scripta manet.
It is quite true that I have infinitely varied the method by which I have
sought to attain the ultimate ideal that at the very beginning of my journalistic
career I set myself to realize. I have supported and opposed in turn almost
every leading statesman, and I have from time to time thrown whatever
influence I had, now on the side of Imperialism, and then on the side
of peace, and I have done all this, and hope to go on doing it till the
end of my time. But to base the charge of inconsistency on this continual
change of tactics is as absurd as it would be to accuse a mariner of not
steering for his port because from day to day and from hour to hour he
tacks from side to side in order the more expeditiously to reach his distant
port.

This question of the United States of Europe
has been one of the ideals towards which I have constantly, in fair weather
and in foul, directed my course. Nineteen years ago, in the critical election
of 1880, it was my lot to draw up an electoral catechism which was more
widely used as an electoral weapon by the party which issued triumphant
from the polls than any other broad sheet in the campaign. In this catechism
I formulated my conception of the English foreign policy in terms which,
after the lapse of nineteen years, I do not find necessary to vary by
a single syllable:

Question: "What is England's mission abroad?"
Answer: "To maintain the European Concert - that germ of the United States of Europe - against isolated action; to establish a Roman peace among the dark-skinned races of Asia, Polynesia, and Africa; to unite all branches of the English-speaking race in an Anglo-Saxon Bond, and to spread Liberty, Civilization and Christianity throughout the world."
("The elector's Catechism." General Election of 1880)

My last visit to Russia and the publication
of this book are the latest efforts that I have made to realize the ideal
which was clearly set out in the above sentence written in 1880. The conception
in those days was confined to few, but nowadays the parties led by Lord
Roseberry and Lord Salisbury would vie with each other in asserting their
readiness to recognize the European Concert as the germ of the United
States of Europe, and to develop the concerted action of six Powers in
relation to the question of the East into a Federated Union of all the
European States. It may perhaps be well worth while to form some idea
of this new organic entity which it is the first object of our foreign
policy to create. Are we repeating the crime of Frankenstein, or are we
fashioning, like Pygmalion, a beautiful creature into which at the appointed
time the gods will breathe the breath of life? In other words, what is
this Europe whose United States we are seeking to federate?

Europe is a continent. It is hardly as yet
a realized personality. There was a fair Europa in the mythology of the
ancients, whom Jove loved, and whose story once suggested to Tenniel the
idea that John Bull might aspire successfully to play the part of the
Father of gods and men. But outside mythology there is little personification
of Europe. The symbolical group at the base of the Albert Memorial, representing
Europe as one of the four continents, is almost the only effort with which
we are familiar in England.

But such personification of a Federation
of States is possible enough. The United States of America form a federation
which has its recognized symbolical embodiment in Columbia and its humorous
personification in Uncle Sam. The British Empire is a conglomerate far
more heterogeneous and wide-scattered than the United States of Europe,
but we have our symbol in the heroic figure of Britannia and our familiar
personification in John Bull. The German Empire, to take another illustration,
is also a conglomerate of kingdoms and duchies and cities; but the first
great effort of German art to express in permanent form the triumph of
German arms in the attainment of German unity was the erection of the
colossal statue of Germania upon the wooded heights of the Niederwald
where she still keeps watch and ward over the German Rhine. But in all
these cases it must be admitted there is a certain unity of national type
which facilitates the task of personifying the federal combination.

The caricaturist, who often precedes the
more serious artist in the selection and illustration of themes of national
and international importance, has not been slow to seize the opening offered
by the first crude, tentative efforts towards international action in
Crete by portraying the European soldier as a fantastic conglomerate,
a thing of shreds and patches, clothed in fragments of all uniforms. Not
so will the artist proceed who endeavors to present before the world the
heroic proportions of her who, although the least among the Continents,
is now, as she has been for two thousand years, the greatest among them
all. The Star of Empire which shone in the remote past over the valley
of the Nile and the plains watered by the Euphrates has since the great
day of Salamis been faithful to Europe. It may be that the new Continent
of the West may yet challenge successfully the primacy of the older world.
But except in alliance with Britain, no such challenge can be dreamed
of for a century, and Britain is European as well as American, Asiatic
as well as African. For as the Tsar is Emperor of all the Russians, so
Her Majesty is Empress on All the Continents and All the Seas.

There is a charming little poem by Russell
Lowell entitled "The Beggar." The poet describes himself as
a beggar wandering through the world, asking from all things that he meets
something of their distinguishing characteristics. From the old oak he
craves its steadfastness, from the granite gray its stern unyielding might,
from the sweetly mournful pine he asks its pensiveness serene, from the
violet its modesty, and from the cheerful brook its sparkling light content.

The idea is a pretty conceit, but it may
help us to consider the distinctive qualities which the world may crave
not in vain from the various component parts of this new composite entity,
the United States of Europe.

It is indeed good to regard our sister nations
with grateful heart, to contemplate the gifts which they bring with them
to the fraternal banquet of the peoples, and to realize, if only in imagination,
what we should lose if any of the European States were to drop out of
the world.

First among the States in area and in power
stands Russia, the sword of Europe against the Infidel, for centuries
the only hope and shelter of the Christian East. Upon the threshold of
the Russian home burst the full horrors of Asiatic conquest. Time was
when every wandering Tartar from the steppes rode as master and owner
over prostrate Muscovy. But the storm of nomad savagery spent itself upon
the Russian land, which, though submerged for a time, nevertheless saved
Europe.

After a time the Russians threw off the
yoke of the oppressor and entered upon their secular mission as liberators
and champions of the Christian East. To their self-sacrificing valor the
world owes the freedom of Romania, the emancipation of Serbia, the independence
of Greece, and the liberation of Bulgaria. Not a freeman breathes to-day
between the Pruth and the Adriatic but owes his liberty to Russia. Liberty
in these Eastern lands was baptized in Russian blood freely spent in the
Holy War against the Moslem oppressor. Nor is it only liberty in Eastern
lands which owes a heavy debt to Russian sacrifices. As Russia in the
Middle Ages received upon her ample breast the shock of the Tartar spears,
and made for Europe a rampart with her bleeding form against the Asiatic
horde, so Russia at the dawn of this century arrested the devastating
wave of Napoleonic conquest. The flames of her burning capital were as
the star of the dawn to the liberties of Europe. Moscow delivered the
death-blow to which Leipsic and Waterloo were but the coup de grâce.
In later years Russia has done yeoman's service to the cause of humanity
by bridling the savages of the Asiatic steppes and destroying slavery
in the heart of Asia. She is now bridling the Continent with a road of
steel, and from Archangel to Odessa, from Warsaw to Saghalien is maintaining
with somewhat heavy hand the Roman peace. Russia has preserved in the
midst of her dense forests and illimitable steppes the principle of cooperative
husbandry, of a commune based on brotherly love, and has realized the
dream of village republics locally autonomous under the ægis of
the Tsar. In the face of Asia, fanatically Moslem, and Europe, fanatically
Papal, Russia has maintained alike against Turkish scimitar and Polish
lance her steadfast allegiance to the Christian Creed. Her travelers penetrate
the remotest fastnesses of Asia; her men of science are in the foremost
rank of modern discovery; the stubborn valor of her soldiers has taught
the world new lessons as to the might of self-sacrificing obedience; her
poorest peasant preserves unimpaired the splendid loyalty and devotion
of the Middle Ages; her writers of genius, like Turgenieff, delight the
civilized world with their romances; her painters, Gay and Verestchagin,
display a genius as great on canvas as her Rubinstein and Paderewski in
music; while in all the world to-day no voice sounds out over sea and
land with such prophetic note as that of Count Tolstoy. There is in Russia,
as in every other land, much that even the most patriotic Russians would
wish absent; but who is there who can deny that, take her all in all,
the disappearance of Russia as she is from the European galaxy would leave
us poor indeed?

From the largest to the smallest, from the
Empire of the plain to the Republic of the Alps, is but a step. Both are
European. Who is there among free men whose pulse does not beat faster
at the thought of all that Switzers have dared and Switzers have done?
Here in the heart of surrounding despotism these hardy peasants and mountaineers
tended the undying flame of Liberty, and century after century furnished
an envious world with the spectacle of a frugal Republic, whose more than
Roman virtue remained proof against the blandishments of royal ambition
or the menaces of imperial power. William Tell may be a myth, but the
legend that is associated with his name is more of a living reality than
all the deeds of all the Hapsburgs duly certified by the official Dry-as-dusts.
And Arnold von Winkelried, he at least was real both in history and in
song, and for all time the story of his dying cry, "Make way for
Liberty!" as he gathered the Austrian spears into his breast, will
lift the soul of man above the level of selfish commonplace and inspire
even the least imaginative of mortals with some gleam of the vision -the
beatific vision- of the heroism of sacrifice. To-day, when the day of
storm and stress has given place to more tranquil times, Switzerland has
become at once the political and social laboratory of the world and the
playground and health resort of Europe. Here at the base of her snowclad
hills Europe cherishes as the élite of the Continent the intelligent
and energetic democracy which defends its frontier without the aid of
a standing army; and while lacking alike rivers, seaport, coal, and iron,
has nevertheless proved itself able to hold its own in the competition
of the world.

"Italia, oh! Italia, thou who hast
the fatal gift of beauty," hast the not less priceless gift of associations
of history and romance, before which those of all other nations but Greece
simply disappear. The nation which boasts as its capital the city of the
Cæsars can never yield to any other the primacy of fame. Europe
once centered in the Eternal City. The unity of the Continent, as far
as the Rhine and the Danube, was for centuries a realized fact, when the
sceptre had not departed from Rome nor the lawgiver from the banks of
the Tiber. Nor is the Italian claim to primacy solely traditional. For
whatever may be the political power of the Quirinal as world power, Italy
makes herself felt through the Vatican. At this moment, in Chicago, public
life is more or less demoralized because an Italian old man in Rome made
a mistake in the selection of the Irishman who rules the great Catholic
city of the West as the Pope's archbishop. And as it is in Chicago, so
it is to a greater or lesser extent in every vast center of population
throughout the world. But the Papacy, although more than European, is
nevertheless a constant factor which must be reckoned with in discussing
the evolution of Europe. The instinct of Leo is entirely in favor of peace
and unity, but a firebrand in Peter's chair could easily perpetuate for
another generation the armed anarchy of the Continent. Apart alike from
politics and religion, Italy has always been a potent influence in promoting
the growth of a wider than national culture, developing European rather
than provincial interest. For centuries before Cook arose and a trip to
the Continent became a thing of course, Italy alone possessed in her treasures
of art sufficient attraction to induce men of every nation to brave the
discomforts and perils of a Continental journey. From being the Mistress,
Italy became the Loadstone of the Continent, and that distinction she
has still preserved. To those treasure-cities of mediæval art which
shine like stars in the firmament, reverent pilgrims every year bend their
way as to most sacred shrines. But in every age, Italy, whether poor,
distracted, and overrun by barbarian conquerors, or queening it as mistress
over a Continent, has ever possessed a strange and magic charm. Dante
was hers, and Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Savonarola -four names, the
power and the glory of which are felt even where they are not understood,
in the remote backwoods of America, or in the depths of the Australian
bush. In modern times the revolutionary energy of the mid-century was
cradled in Italy. Garibaldi restored to politics of the present day somewhat
of the fascination which charms in the pages of Ariosto, while Mazzini
revived in our latter day the primitive type of prophet-seer.

Nor must we forget, in paying our homage
to Italy as Queen of the Arts and custodian of the great sites from which
Pope and Cæsar in former times swayed the sceptre, spiritual and
secular, over mankind, that Italy of the present day is peopling the New
World more rapidly than any of her sister nations. While emigration from
almost every other country has fallen off in the last decade of the century,
that from Italy has increased until it amounts to well nigh half of the
European overflow. If this be kept up, we may see a new Italy in South
America which may be for the Italian race what New England has been for
Britain in the northern hemisphere.

From Italy, which on the extreme south approaches
almost to the torrid heat of Africa, I would turn to another land at the
opposite extremity of the Continent, whose northern frontier lies within
the Arctic Circle. Sweden and Norway, at present far removed from the
troubled vortex of European politics, cannot vie with Italy in art or
with Russia in political power, but none the less the sister States represent
much which Europe could ill spare. We of the North land, at least, and
all the teeming progeny that have sprung from our loins, can never forget
the Scandinavian home from whence the sea kings came; and although our
culture is largely Hebraic on one side and Hellenic on the other, the
warp and woof upon which the Hebrew and the Greek have embroidered their
ideas is essentially Norse. Nor can we of the Reformed faith, at least,
ever forget the heroic stand made on behalf of the Protestant religion
by Gustavus Adolphus and the brave men whom he led to victory on so many
a hard-fought field. Charles XII., too, that meteor of conquest and of
war, supplies one of those heroic and chivalrous figures of the European
drama whose romantic career still inspires those who live under widely
different circumstances and under remoter skies. Norway is the only country
in Europe which vies with Switzerland in enabling the dwellers in our
great plains and crowded cities easy access to the sublimest mountain
scenery. In the social and political realm, we owe to Gothenburg, a Swedish
town, the most helpful of all the experiments that have been tried for
the solution of the liquor traffic; while in the world of books there
are to-day no three names more constantly on the lips of the librarians
of the world than the three great Scandinavians whose fame is the common
heritage of our race; Björnson in fiction, Ibsen in the drama, and
Nansen in Arctic exploration.

Again turning southward, we find in Spain
another of the nations which, in the flash of its imperial prime, endeavored
to realize the dream of United Europe. Spain at one time seemed destined
by Providence to the over-lordship of the Old World and the New. Between
Spain and Portugal the Pope divided the whole world which was discovered
by the Genoese sailor who was financed by Isabella of Spain. It is but
three hundred years ago since Spain loomed as large before the eyes of
Europe as Germany plus England would do to-day. Alike on land and sea
there was none to challenge her supremacy. To-day Spain is the mere shadow
of her former self, but even if the shadow itself vanished from the earth,
the memory of the great days of Spanish chivalry when, like Russia on
the east, she stood warden of Europe on the south, can never be forgotten.
The chivalrous Moors, who have left the imperishable monuments of their
presence in the fairy-like ruins of Alhambra, were very different from
the Tartar horde which nearly extinguished Russia; but the secular struggle
waged against them equally called out the heroic qualities of the race.
As the Moor was the anvil on which the Spanish sword was beaten until
it became a veritable Toledo blade, so in turn Spain became the anvil
on which our malleable English metal was beaten into the broad sword and
trident by which we rule the sea to-day. Of all her possessions abroad,
Spain to-day retains but a few straggling islets in the Eastern seas.
But Spanish pride is as great to-day in her hour of national decline as
when Spain was at the zenith of imperial prosperity. To European literature
she has contributed two great names -Cervantes and Calderon- one of whom
is to-day to the majority of us but a name and nothing more; while the
other, Cervantes, has contributed to the literature of the world one of
the dozen books which are read everywhere by everybody in every language
and in every land. To Europe of to-day Spain contributes little but an
imposing tradition and somewhat of the stately dignity of the hidalgo,
which the modern world, in the rush and tumble of these democratic days,
is in danger of forgetting. Her authors are read but little beyond the
Pyrenees, her statesmen exercise little weight in European affairs, but
in Castelar she contributed to the Parliament of Europe the most eloquent
orator of the Continent.

How incredible it would have seemed in the
sixteenth century had any one predicted that in the centuries to come
Spain would be a Power of the third magnitude, while the Austrian Empire,
shorn of all influence in Germany, would nevertheless rank among the half-dozen
great Powers of Europe! But the incredible thing has come to pass, and
Austria-Hungary, torn by domestic dissensions and threatened by powerful
foes, continues to exhibit a marvelous vitality and indestructible youth.
The land of the Danube with a dual throne, broad based upon a dozen races
speaking as many languages -the Empire kingdom is the political miracle
of the nineteenth century. Mr. Gladstone once scornfully asked, "On
what spot of the map of the world could we place our finger and say, here
Austria has done good?" But the answer is obvious. Outside her frontiers
she may have done as little good as England has done in eastern Europe,
but within the limits of the Empire-kingdom Austria has rendered invaluable
service to the cause of peace and civilization of the semi-savage races
whom she has tamed and kept in line. To act as schoolmaster, not on despotic
but on constitutional principles, to Ruthenians and Slovaks, Poles and
Czechs; to organize a State which is indispensable for European stability,
out of such discordant elements as those which compose the conglomerate
of Austria-Hungary, these are achievements indeed for which Europe is
not ungrateful. The dual kingdom not only bears testimony to the possibility
of creating an organic entity out of the most heterogeneous conglomerate
of nationalities, it further affords the most signal illustration in contemporary
history of the fact that States, like individuals, can find salvation
by conversion when they truly repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance,
Fifty years ago Austria was a byword to every Liberal. To-day there is
hardly any State in Central Europe which has worked out so many problems
of decentralization on constitutional lines as the Empire of the Hapsburgs.

Turning from the composite dual kingdom,
we come to a State which in all things is the antithesis of Austria-Hungary.
Austria-Hungary, although extremely diverse in its nationalities, is nevertheless,
territorially, within a ring fence. The Danish nation, on the other hand,
compact, homogeneous to an extent almost without parallel in Europe, a
unity both in race, religion, and in language, is nevertheless scattered
over a peninsula and half-a-dozen islands. In the State system of Europe,
Denmark, with its handful of population, can throw no sword of Brennus
into the scale which decides the destinies of nations; but the nation
marches in the van of European progress. Our farmers have learnt by sore
experience the energy and initiative which have enabled the Danish peasant
to distance all competitors in the markets of Europe. The nation, simple,
honest, hardy, and industrious, free from the vices of caste, is one of
the most conspicuous examples extant of monarchical democracy. The days
have long gone by since Denmark held the keys of the Sound and levied
tax and toll on the shipping of the world as it passed through the Baltic
to the North Sea. But it is worth while remembering that the freeing of
the Sound was an international act, which, as far back as 1857, foreshadowed
the collective action of Europe. The royal House of Denmark, which has
given a King to Greece, an Empress to Russia, and a future Queen to the
British Empire, may fairly claim to be one of the nerve-centers of the
Continent. Nor can it be forgotten that in Thorwaldsen, Denmark has the
supreme distinction of producing a sculptor whose work recalls the sculpture
of ancient Greece. But there are hundreds of millions who have the opportunity
of visiting Copenhagen, and to whom the genius of Thorwaldsen is but a
thing they have heard but do not understand. The one name which is above
every name among the sons of Denmark, which is enshrined within the heart
of every child in every land, is that of Hans Christian Andersen, whose
fairy tales are the classics of every nursery, and whose "Ugly Duckling"
is one of the Birds of Paradise of the world.

We may not agree with Victor Hugo in describing
Paris as the Capital of Civilization, the City of Light, but Europe is
unthinkable without France. The nation which for centuries was the eldest
son of the Church, and which in 1789 became the standard-bearer of the
Revolution, has ever played the foremost role in European history. If
in the last thirty years she has fallen from her pride of place, and no
longer lords it in the Council Chamber, she is none the less an invaluable
element in the comity of nations. The French novel has made the tour of
the world, the French stage is the despair of all its rivals, and in painting
and sculpture the French artists reign supreme. There is a charm about
the French character, a lucidity about French writing, a grace about France
generally, to which other nations aspire in vain. France is the interpreter
to the continent of ideas conceived in Germany or worked out in practical
fashion in English-speaking lands. In all the arts and graces of life,
especially in everything that tends to make the most of the body, whether
in the food of it, the clothing of it, or in the ministering to the universal
instincts of the creature man, they leave the rest of the world helplessly
behind. We English -a slow-witted race, who did not even know how to build
a decent man-of-war until we captured one of the French and used it as
a model in our dockyards- can never adequately acknowledge the debt which
we owe to our neighbors. They preceded us in conquest round the world;
they were the pioneers of empire both in Asia and America. But the supreme
distinction of France in the commonwealth of nations to-day is seldom
or never appreciated at its full significance. France is the one nation
in the world which, fearlessly confronting with remorseless logic the
root problems of the world, has decided apparently with irrevocable determination
that there are not more than thirty-nine millions of Frenchmen needed
as a necessary ingredient in the population of this planet. Other nations
may increase and multiply and replenish the earth, but France has made
up her mind that, having reached her appointed maximum, therewith she
will be content. No temptation, not even the continual multiplication
of the surplus millions of German fighting-men on her eastern frontier,
nor the envy occasioned by the immense expansion of the English race over
the sea, is able to tempt her to forsake her appointed course. What is
more remarkable is that this determination can only be executed by asserting
the right of will and reason to control in a realm that the Church, to
which all French women belong, declares must be left absolutely to the
chance of instinct on pain of everlasting damnation. France may or may
not have chosen the better part; but the self-denying ordinance by which
she deliberately excludes herself from competition with the multiplying
races of the world has an aspect capable of being represented in the noblest
light.

France! heroic France! France of St. Louis
and of Jean d' Ark, is also France of Voltaire and of Diana of Poitiers,
of Molière and Dumas, of Louis Pasteur and Sarah Bernhardt! What
other nation has produced so many of the highest realized ideals of human
capacity on so many different lines? Even now, when the nation that built
Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedral has taken to riveting together the girders
which make the Eiffel Tower, France is still France, the glory and the
despair of the human race.

Space fails me to do more than cast a rapid
glance at the smaller States, each of which nevertheless contributes elements
of vital worth to the great European whole. Much indeed might be said
of Holland, that land won by spadefuls from the sea, protected by dykes
and drained by windmills, in order to provide a level spot of verdure
on which the most phlegmatic and industrious of mortal men could rear
a sober commonwealth under a regal shade, and which, before it became
a kingdom, had bidden high for the Empire of the Indies. Sea-power, now
the sceptre of our sovereignty, was grasped by the Dutch before it was
seized by the English, It was only in the last two hundred years that
the Netherlands fell behind us in the race for empire.

Belgium, once the cock-pit of Europe, is
now the most crowded hive of human industry. In no State are more men
reared per acre, nowhere does patient husbandry win larger crops from
indifferent soil; while in forge and factory and in mine the Belgian workmen
challenge comparison with the world. Belgian competition is pressing us
hard in Russia, in Persia, and in many lands where Belgian goods were
recently unknown.

At the other end of Europe there is Greece
-a name which, if nothing more than a name, is in itself an inspiration.
The modern Greek, only too faithful an inheritor of many of the failings
of his famous ancestors, has at least succeeded to the heritage of Olympus.
No matter what may be his political feelings or his misfortune in war,
the Greek is still the Greek, and behind the rabble rout of office-seekers
which renders government impossible at Athens there still looms the majestic
shades of those "lost gods and god-like men" which have kindled
the imagination of our race since the days when Homer sang the tale of
Troy divine. As the Acropolis is the crown of Athens, so Hellas was the
crown of the world, and that crown neither Turk, barbarian, nor the place-hunting
politician of modern Greece can ever take away. The myths, the traditions,
and the history of Hellas form the brightest diamonds in the tiara of
Europe.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone.

There remain to be noticed but two of all
the band of nations whose States will form the European Union -England
and Germany. These two Empires, which are at present sundered by a certain
jarring dissonance that is all the more keenly felt because their temperaments
and ambitions are so much alike, are the Powers naturally marked out for
promoting the complete realization of the ideal of the United States of
Europe. Some months ago I took the liberty of describing the German Emperor
as the Lord Chief Justice of Europe. It is a role which he alone is competent
to fill. No other potentate on the Continent has either the energy, the
ambition, or the idealism capable of playing so great a role. Germany,
which, after the travail of ages, has achieved her own unity, is of all
the Powers the best fitted to undertake the leadership in the great work
of completing the federation of Europe. Germany, also, from her central
situation, is better placed than any other Power for undertaking the task.
The traditions also of the Holy Roman Empire still linger around the Eagles
of Germany, and the Empire is already the nucleus of a combination which
places the forces of Central Europe, from Kiel to Brindisi, at the disposal
of the Alliance. The Kaiser quite recently informed us that it is not
his fault that more cordial relations have not been established between
the Triple Alliance and France. As this is written he is about to visit
St. Petersburg, when he will undoubtedly endeavor to draw closer the ties
which unite Germany and Russia. Should he succeed in his endeavors, the
attainment of a practical federation of Europe without England would lie
within his reach.

But if Europe without France would be unthinkable,
and if Europe without Germany would be Europe without reflective brain
and the mailed hand, what could we think of Europe without England? It
does not become me as an Englishman to say much in praise of my own people.
But this I may say, that Europe without England would be Europe without
the one Power the expansive force of whose colonizing and maritime genius
has converted Asia and Africa into European vassals and has secured the
American and Australian continents as receptacles for the overflow of
Europe's population. And this also may be added, that Europe without England
would be Europe without the one Power whose sovereignty of the seas is
nowhere exerted for the purpose of securing privilege or favor for English
flag or English trade. Nor must it be forgotten that Europe without England
would be Europe without the one country which for centuries has been the
inviolable asylum alike of fugitive kings and of proscribed revolutionists,
the sea-girl citadel of civil and religious liberty, whose Parliamentary
institutions have been imitated more or less closely by almost every civilized
land. Europe without England would be Europe without her wings, a Europe
without the sacred shrine where in every age the genius of Human Liberty
has guarded the undying flame of Freedom.

The Federation of Europe at the present
moment is like an embryo in the later stages of gestation. It is not yet
ready to be born. But it has quickened with conscious life, and already
the Continent feels the approaching travail.

It has been a slow process. The great births
of Time need great preparations. Under the foundations of the Cathedral
of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg a whole forest of timber was sunk in piles
before a basis strong enough for the mighty dome could be secured. The
Federation of Europe is a temple far vaster than any pile of masonry put
together by the hands of man. In the morass of the past its foundations
have been reared, not upon the spoils of the forest, but upon generation
of living men who have gone down into the void from red battlefield and
pest-smitten camp and leaguered city in order that upon their bones the
Destinies might lay the first courses of the new State. Carlyle's famous
illustration of the Russian regiment at the siege of Zeidnitz, which was
deliberately marched into the fosse in order that those followed after
might march to victory over a pavement of human heads, represents only
too faithfully the material on which these great world fabrics are reared.

Nor is it only the individuals who have
perished by the million, in blind struggling towards they knew not what,
which have supplied the substratum upon which the United States of Europe
were slowly to be built. Political systems, laboriously constructed by
the wisdom of statesmen and minutely elaborated to meet the ever-varying
exigencies of their day, royal dynasties and great empires have all equally
been flung into the abyss like rubble, after having served their turn
to make foundation material for that which is to come. In preparing great
political events Nature works with the same almost inconceivable patience
and inexhaustible profusion that may be witnessed in the formation of
the crust of the earth or in the evolution of a highly organized species.
For, as Ibsen has said, Nature is not economical. And in the preparation
of the foundation of Europe she has hurled into the deep trench so much
of the finished workmanship of preceding ages as to provoke a comparison
with the work of the barbarians, who made hearthstones of the statues
chiseled by the pupils of Praxiteles, and who utilized the matchless sculpture
of the temples of the gods in the construction of their sties.

Who is behind this website?
My name is Owen Mulpetre (BA, MPhil), a historian turned web designer and I founded this website in 2001. Since then, it has been used by students, scholars and institutions around the world. It is today the largest online resource on the life and career of W.T. Stead.

If you have a question or query, or you are interested in my web design services, please feel free to Contact me
(but please don't ask me to do your research for you!)